This is the era of 'transmigrational fashion' in India. In no other time in history have Indian designers been so adept at sprouting wings and making calm landings on foreign shores. Really, it's only been seven years of organised fashion weeks in India and the fashion sensibility of the designers has metamorphosed in quantum leaps. Now you can speak very nonchalantly about say, Sabyasachi's collection on Style.com, Hillary Alexander's critique of Manish Arora and Varun Bahl in Milan. Kudos to the designers but more about them later.

What is intriguing is that the 'typical' (if you are reading this you are not typical) Indian fashion consumer - even with four fashion weeks in this country beating down style mantras for them in every media possible - remains fashionably unimaginative, unexperimentative and caught in a time warp hailing their favourite designers like cabs, for that 'kurti-cut' and 'fusion-lehenga'. Pity, you can't ignore them, they are after all moneyed to the gills. The beautiful bubble tops and the pin-tucked skirts that made them the hottest Indian trend from Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week (WLIFW) will be dry-cleaned to be exhibited in London, Dubai and New York.

The success of WLIFW must be given to the designers who have matured beyond the recognition of their own homegrown consumers. One look at the taffeta dress softly constructed by Shantanu and Nikhil and you know that along with money, to carry it off, great panache is required. The understated opulence of everyday throw-ons like shorts (in gold raw silk) or the delicately pleated chanderi top is but a few of the many stunning designs that have made this designer duo an example of unstoppable ascent (it also helped that this time there was no god or religion as creative muse). Then there was Cue with their Dutch dolls-inspired porcelain blue frocks and jackets with exquisite appliqués and hand-done crochet that spelt refinement and quality. Ana Mika once again made mere muslins and chiffons create absolute magic with her layers of superimposed prints making the collection exude a calming strength.

As for Rajesh Pratap Singh, his 'cool-quotient' is on such a high that just saying he is one of your favourite designers puts you up there in the social hierarchy. But his real customers in far-flung countries are fastidiously discerning, and for them 'sexy and outré' are quite redundant. At WLIFW the subtlety with which he handled the over-abused pastels of the season (lemons, greens, blues) and gradually upped the ante to absorb deeper hues was delightful. '... Give us the courage to stay with our whites, And forgive us our trespasses into brights' read the 'Mediocre Poem', a self-flagellating ode to his collection in his programme note. Now, how do you tell Mrs New Moneybags that Prataps's collection was, really, never 'saxy'.

"High-fashion to a majority of customers means sexy clothes. But my clothes are more than just plain ol' sexy! The woman who enjoys my clothes is really, even without my knowing her, an extension of me. Which means she is creatively mad, emotionally naïve and a hotbed of action! Sexy in this day and age is too simplistic an approach," says Manish Arora whose skirts teamed with simple white racer-backs are worn by raven-heads in the streets of London. But in India they are reserved for mad parties in Bamboo Forest and quite hypocritically, off the streets.

Namrata Joshipura's collection - which those sassy, confident city women carry off with urban savoire faire - her cocoon jackets, skinny pants and drop waists in cognac, mushroom and old rose (with an occasional pop colour for drama) was an absolute crowd favourite. Yet she faces a certain conundrum with her customers in Delhi (call them the schizophrenic shoppers). Just recently at her store a young Indian woman absolutely adored a gilded dress (Ujjwala opened with it in Namrata's Fall Collection last season) with a deep revealing neckline. Fretting that she could never wear it in India she bought it to party in when she is overseas. "I find it frustrating that while my clothes have crossed boundaries and sell very well with chic confident women in New York, in India there is this unnecessary dilemma." While it is true that it's always the well-travelled, well-read customers who understand and accept the designs for what they are, the majority of them are busy requesting alterations to make them more 'dressy' or more 'sequinned'.

"People blame the designers for not being creative. But I think it's the consumer who cannot take a plunge and be creative about their dress sense," says Varun Bahl, who gets terribly annoyed when some shoppers ask him to modify his designs to make them 'more Indian'. He refuses to oblige. After all, his collection was welcomed with enthusiasm (along with China's Lily and Silique) in the ReGeneration segment for new upcoming designers at Milan Fashion Week, and that is testimony in itself about quality and creativity.

Gaurav Gupta, who has now successfully donned the mantle of the new enfant terrible showcased exquisite dresses at WLIFW for summer, with his trademark metal embroidery, ancient Greek draping and conceptual pattern cutting. Yet when his designs reach the stores, many of the dresses that wowed the Parisian buyers will be in racks paired with churidars, converting edgy designs into semi-traditional ones. "Sure typical Indian consumers have changed in the way they will accept different cuts and silhouettes but the need to have a strong Indian identity is still very demanding," says Gaurav.

It was only just a few years back when the press would harangue designers for bringing out collections that consisted mainly of the 'same old salwars and saris'. They were unjustly accused of not being prêt-à-porter enough, when in fact saris and salwar suits can be as ready-to-wear as they come. Now that designers have such sophisticated lines that they move from local to international markets effortlessly, where does the problem lie?

Perhaps it's Mrs New Moneybags. Is her sense of 'Indian identity' shrouded in pseudo patriotism ("I am only Indian when I wear Indian clothes" or worse, "I am Indian so I will only wear Indian clothes") or is she the fashion chameleon who chooses to be an ethnic prude in her own country but will merrily reinvent her morality when she is overseas?